Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks of Incremental AI Development

A new paper from researchers at arXiv introduces the concept of 'gradual disempowerment,' arguing that incremental AI advancements could systematically erode human influence over critical societal systems such as the economy, culture, and nation-states, potentially leading to an irreversible existential catastrophe. The authors warn that as AI replaces human labor and cognition, it may weaken both explicit control mechanisms and implicit alignments with human interests, with effects reinforcing across domains.

Computer Science Computers and Society Submitted on 28 Jan 2025 v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16946v1 , last revised 29 Jan 2025 this version, v2 Title:Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development View PDF /pdf/2501.16946 HTML experimental https://arxiv.org/html/2501.16946v2 Abstract:This paper examines the systemic risks posed by incremental advancements in artificial intelligence, developing the concept of gradual disempowerment', in contrast to the abrupt takeover scenarios commonly discussed in AI safety. We analyze how even incremental improvements in AI capabilities can undermine human influence over large-scale systems that society depends on, including the economy, culture, and nation-states. As AI increasingly replaces human labor and cognition in these domains, it can weaken both explicit human control mechanisms like voting and consumer choice and the implicit alignments with human interests that often arise from societal systems' reliance on human participation to function. Furthermore, to the extent that these systems incentivise outcomes that do not line up with human preferences, AIs may optimize for those outcomes more aggressively. These effects may be mutually reinforcing across different domains: economic power shapes cultural narratives and political decisions, while cultural shifts alter economic and political behavior. We argue that this dynamic could lead to an effectively irreversible loss of human influence over crucial societal systems, precipitating an existential catastrophe through the permanent disempowerment of humanity. This suggests the need for both technical research and governance approaches that specifically address the risk of incremental erosion of human influence across interconnected societal systems. Submission history From: Jan Kulveit view email /show-email/4549f926/2501.16946 Tue, 28 Jan 2025 13:45:41 UTC 2,913 KB v1 /abs/2501.16946v1 v2 Wed, 29 Jan 2025 14:58:49 UTC 2,913 KB References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer What is the Explorer? https://info.arxiv.org/labs/showcase.html arxiv-bibliographic-explorer Connected Papers What is Connected Papers? https://www.connectedpapers.com/about Litmaps What is Litmaps? https://www.litmaps.co/ scite Smart Citations What are Smart Citations? https://www.scite.ai/ Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv What is alphaXiv? https://alphaxiv.org/ CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers What is CatalyzeX? https://www.catalyzex.com DagsHub What is DagsHub? https://dagshub.com/ Gotit.pub What is GotitPub? http://gotit.pub/faq Hugging Face What is Huggingface? https://huggingface.co/huggingface ScienceCast What is ScienceCast? https://sciencecast.org/welcome Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower What are Influence Flowers? https://influencemap.cmlab.dev/ CORE Recommender What is CORE? https://core.ac.uk/services/recommender arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs https://info.arxiv.org/labs/index.html .